Chapter 36: Revealing Times
Dad and I were watching The Breakfast Club the Saturday before my trip, as was our new tradition to watch an old vid on the weekends.
"You know, it was rare for me to have night like this when I was growing up," he sighed after the movie ended.
"I doubt there was much time for movies in between all that crime fighting every night," I picked up our popcorn bowls and brought them into the kitchen. Dad followed me.
"There was time, Bruce just didn't make it a priority. Something your Uncle Tim and I eventually made into our own thing."
"I feel like there's an underlying point to this," I teased. He didn't laugh.
"I've tried my best to be the parent you deserve. Especially after I found out your mother had abandoned you. I gave you the attention and relationship I never had but so desperately craved living with Bruce. He's a good man, but parenting was never his strong suit. I hope I'm better than that."
"Of course you are! You are a million times better than Bruce!" How could he ever think he was anything less than a great father? Sure we had the occasional fight, but never anything that would make me doubt his love for me. Out of everything that had happened to me in the last six months, that was never a question, "I have so many fond memories with you growing up, and I know you'll always be there for me, no matter how much of a dumbass I am," I hugged him.
"Good. Never forget then," He returned the hug.
"Dad? What's this all about?" The question was muffled by his shoulder.
"Bruce told me about the suit. How he came and took it from you a few weeks ago. About the mods you had been making to it," I stiffened, "You were going to confront your mother, weren't you?"
I sighed and pulled out of the hug. Just once I'd like a hug to not end in a serious conversation.
"After everything she did, not just to me, but to Anni too, don't you think I have that right?"
"I agree Victoria needs to be held accountable for what she's done, but I don't think you should be the one to do it."
"Why not me! She has literally been playing her hand against me this entire time. She choose me as her opponent in this slagged up game she's playing."
"I didn't bring this up to argue, Jamie," He placed a hand on my shoulder, "I know you, how tenacious you can be once your mind is set on something. How hungry you are for the truth about your mother and what she's done. But I need you to promise me something," He looked me dead in the eye. There was no anger, or stubbornness I usually saw when we argued. All that was there was unwavering concern.
"What is it?" I asked quietly, already knowing I wouldn't be able to keep it, whatever it was. I think he knew it too, but he still asked.
"Promise me you'll let this go and let one of the family pursue it. You can even pick who, but I can't in good conscience let you keep doing this. It took me years to escape this life, and that was only after I became so broken I had to give it up. I'm trying to save you from that path before you get too far down it."
"How can you say that when you helped so many people? Saved countless lives, not only from villains, but from the dark paths they were headed down."
"Nightwing was only able to do those things at a great personal cost to Dick Grayson. I want you to have a life where you don't have to sacrifice your happiness for the sake of a double life. It consumes everything you do, no matter how hard you try to keep them separate."
I thought about how much I'd had seen Terry give up for the sake of being Batman. The lies to Dana, suffering grades, sacrificing family time. Sure that stuff sucked, but Terry never seemed to regret being Batman. Even more so now that Powers was gone and he got justice for his dad. He genuinely seemed to enjoy doing it.
I put some thought into how Shadow was affecting my life. The endless hours of research on MedCorp, modifying the suit, trying to learn anything about the others with microchips.
Max's ultimatum and my still healing shoulder. Never mind the cut on my leg from my narrow escape in New York, and the nasty scar on my left arm I got from Spellbinder. I had already sacrificed so much to this life and I was completely exhausted. How had any of my family done it for so long? How were Jason and Uncle Damian still doing it? I was so close to sincerely making that promise, to handing over all the evidence I had gathered to Dad and letting him handle it. The words were right there.
But then Jake Michelson's grief stricken face flashed across my mind. So confused and heartbroken at his sister's sudden death. Ko's angry tears as she came to terms with Anni willing going to her father, and her own struggle with loosing our best friend. The look of pure grief on Dad's face at the funeral when I gave the eulogy. The hole in my chest that seemed to never go away. I owed it to them as much as myself to stop Victoria personally. There were also the others with microchips.
She had already killed another inmate. An innocent man in Detroit who was proven to be falsely accused and was supposed to be released in February. I cried when I read the article about his death. "Suicide" in his cell. His name was Xavier Nelson and he was so optimistic about life outside of prison. Victoria took another hopeful light away, all for her sick little science experiment.
As much as this was negatively affecting me, I owed it to these people to stop Victoria. I was silent once and it cost my best friend her life. Anni's death was my burden to bear, along with Xavier's. The least I could do was prevent it from happening again.
"Let me decide," I told him. That seemed to satisfy him for the time being, because the conversation shifted to other things.
The plane ride to San Jose was unsettlingly quiet. Ko barely spoke, claiming she had a paper to work on. Mrs. Togchi and Ko had a conversation in Japanese for the entire drive to Palo Alto, and Ko kept casting side glances at me in the back of the car. What was going on with her? And on top of that, I felt like I was being watched in the hotel lobby.
I found out what was wrong the minute we were alone in our hotel room.
"Should I still call you Jamie, or would you prefer your new name?" She spat.
"New na-? Ko, what are you talking about?"
She pulled out her phone, "Reports of a new vigilante have arisen in Gotham. Citizens have dubbed the new hero Shadow as they seem to only seem to work from the shadows, even more so than Batman," She read.
"You think I'm the new vigilante in Gotham?"
"It seems the Shadow has personal issue with the mega-corporation, MedCorp," She continued to read, "The perp who broke in at the New York offices back in January fits the description of Shadow. CEO Victoria Rogers said she saw a figure watching her offices in Gotham that was clearly not Batman," Ko gave me a pointed look.
"Fine! So I'm Shadow," Nice tact, Grayson, "But this isn't a continuous thing! I'm going to prove what Victoria did to Anni and others and then Shadow is dead."
"You could've told me. I thought we were closer than that," I flinched at the hurt in her voice, "I've been doing my own research ever since you told me about the microchip. We could've worked together."
"You have? How? MedCorp is ridiculously hard to find any info on!"
"That's not how this is gonna work Jamie. You tell me everything, and I mean everything, daughter of Nightwing. And then I'll tell you my side."
I sometimes forget how scary demanding Ko can be. And how ominously informed she is without telling her anything. She's a lot like Bruce in an eerie way.
"Do you want the Batman part first, or the mother with extreme mommy issues?" I sighed and sat on the bed.
"Let's start with Batman," She sat next to me.
Ko is by far the smartest person I know, and yet I'm always surprised when she puts her intellect towards something other than helping me commit misdemeanors.
"Damn Ko, this is a lot of information," I shuffled through the papers on the bed, "How did you manage to find all this?"
"You're not the only one with access to impressive tech. Aaaaaaannnddd, my cousin is a professional hacker for Singapore's government. She owed me a favor."
"She must be really good at what she does."
"You have no idea," She muttered, "So knowing you, and how thick headed you are,"
"Hey!" I threw a pillow at her. It hit her in the chest, but she ignored it.
"You seem to operate on 80% emotional reaction and 20% logical thinking. It's true," She responded to the look I shot her, "I take it you've thought nothing of how to take your mom down within the legal system."
"I shrugged, "I figured human experimentation was solid grounds. Especially on a minor."
"Jay, you are so smart, yet you've always sucked at history," She slid her tablet across the bed.
California Passes Experimentation Laws Despite Protests
July 6, 2022
"What? But isn't California the leading state against Splicers? How is this a thing here?"
"Keep reading."
Leading the push for lax human experimentation laws was Senators Allison Vickory and James Orn.
"The U.S is falling behind in technological advances, especially in the medical fields," Vickory stated after the bill was signed by Governor Warren on Tuesday.
Backing the senators was the group, Roboticists for Tomorrow, one member notably being Victoria Rogers, CEO of Roger Technologies. Rogers said that this new law gives inventors and creatives more freedom to approach problem solving.
"More countries around the world have started to adopt this way of thinking, and it's time the U.S take the lead."
Holy shit! Victoria paid off politicians so she could experiment on me, legally. And the those dregs let her!
"What the hell! How long have you known about this?" I looked at Ko, who was lounging on chair in our room, examining my spare Shadow suit.
"I told you, after you told me about the microchip. I want justice for Anni and you. Victoria deserves to rot for what she did to Anni. And the others." She said, picking a loose thread off the purple bat symbol, "When was the last time you used a sewing machine?"
"But now we have no means to incriminate her. My plan is useless." I ignored her comment about my sewing skills.
"For someone related to the World's Greatest Detective, you sure do jump to conclusions fast," she said, reaching over me to grab her tablet, "November 13, 2023," She read, "Governor Warren repeals Human Experimentation laws due to public outrage and petitions. The article says that anyone with the permit for experiments has to stop and turn in their work to the state. All permits were revoked."
Too late for me by that point. The files I had stolen from MedCorp said they had the microchip implanted in my skull in August. Well within the legal time limit.
"Sorry we can't use you as evidence against her. But we still have the prisoners she used. They, 1. Weren't residents of California, except the one, and 2. Their experiments were well past the time limit of the law. Oh and 3. Pretty sure they weren't voluntary participants, which is part of the requirement of the law. I think between the two of us, we have enough evidence to take her to court at least," She surveyed the mass of papers we had across the bed, "MedCorp and Roger Tech files from you, prisoner files from both of us, microchip diagrams from me, and Project Whisper files from Shadow..."
"Why are Shadow and I two different people?"
"You want to admit to breaking and entering in court?"
"Fair point, but it's just us right now," And as I said that, that weird watched feeling crawled up my spine again. I whipped around to look out the window, but nothing was there.
"You okay Jay?" Ko asked, as I pulled the blinds down.
"Just feeling oddly paranoid," I shook it off, "Before we go to the police with all this, I need your help with something."
I stared at the ceiling in the hotel room. It was four in the morning. We were supposed to get up and head to Stanford in a few hours and I hadn't slept at all. After Ko had agreed to my plan, we started talking about what we wanted to see at the school. She had a whole list of questions for the head of the biology department, while I had nothing. I hadn't taken the school visit seriously enough, and I was once again hit with the realization that I was severely under-prepared for my future.
I was at a crossroads. Dad was right in trying to stop me from becoming a vigilante before it consumed me like it did him and Bruce. This thing with Victoria was stealing so much away from my life, not just people, but time. I had to ask myself, was going to San Francisco about justice or closure? Is that why I asked Ko to put off going to the police? Why I refused to let anyone else handle this when I knew they could do this better than me? There were so many questions I didn't have the answers to and kept me up. I finally fell asleep on the ride to Stanford.
Hello! It's been waaaaayyy too long and I apologize. I finished my job training and now I'm working more frequently.
On the plus side, this story is in the last five chapters. We'll get to see how Jamie handles all the info she (and Ko apparently) have gathered and what she does with Victoria.
Fun Fact: Jamie really likes California. She would give anything to ride her bike on Highway 1.
Second Fun Fact: 20 years ago TODAY, Batman Beyond aired. It's also the day Bruce suffered the heart attack that forced Batman into retirement.